GoPets: Vacation IslandReview

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It's not the worst vacation we've had.

By Jack DeVries

Not to sound like old farts here, but we remember when virtual pets were simple. Back in my day, we had Tamagotchis. They got hungry, they pooped, and they played one game. They were not customizable, and they did not communicate with each other, or connect to the internet for social networking. We had a 6x6 LCD pixel square and we liked it! But the virtual pet scene has come along way since the mid-90s and it's a force to be reckoned with. Online giants like Neopets and Webkinz are turning free websites into profits. But there's one thing the big guys haven't done with their service: tap into the Nintendo DS market. The underdog GoPets beat them to the punch with GoPets: Vacation Island, a shrunk down version of their website developed by 1st Playable Productions for the handheld. It's cute and cuddly, but it's got about as much depth as the paper-doll looking characters.

For the uninitiated, GoPets is a virtual pet/social networking website that launched back in 2004. Players can create and customize their own pet and interact with other players all over the world through games and chatting.

GoPets: Vacation Island takes the same principle of the website, and shrinks it down. Players can create their own pet, and customize it with over 700 pieces of clothing and accessories. The resort is inhabited by Islanders and their pets, providing friends for the player and pet to interact with.

Everything about this game is extremely basic. The design, the games, the level of interactivity is all very simple. That isn't necessarily good or bad as a whole. The environments and pet design, for instance, work in their simplicity, and with hundreds of wearable objects we understand the need to keep things uniform. Where the basic presentation doesn't work is in areas of pet selection. There are three pets in GoPets: Dog, Cat, Pony. It doesn't matter what color and what clothes you put on your pet, it still looks like every other dog, cat, or pony on the island. The game is begging for variety; a variety that the developers have already promoted through food and clothing from around the world. We can feed our pet pad Thai, kimchi, or baked eel, but we can't adopt a parakeet, or maybe a ferret? The web version of the game has pandas, hook us up with those adorable bastards.

Sometimes your pets think they're Michael Flatley.

Fans of the web version will probably be pleased with the currently DS exclusive pony, and will also find most of the game familiar. Communication is done entirely through Iku, which is described as "haiku with pictures." Dozens of pictograms are available, each representing a word and players can make short messages to send to the Islanders or other game owners. It's cute and all, but since the word is displayed when we click the icon, it seems like it's adding an extra step to sending a message. But icon poetry is better than no communication, and the AI Islanders seem to be able to respond pretty intelligently to the messages we sent. Plus, the biggest draw is that this system is universal. We can communicate with someone in Korea or France simply and easily without fear of getting lost in translation.

And just like the web version, our GoPet likes to wander. By connecting to the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, players can send their pet out to roam the Internet, and receive wandering pets. This is actually a crafty way to circumvent the friend code system. We can send a friend request or Iku message to the owner of the wandering pets. We can even send items, and when they log onto the WFC they'll receive it. It's a limited means of communication, but it allows players to meet new people and interact with them, without having to get friends codes first. There is a benefit to having friend codes in that it allows the player to personally invite players to their island for a party.

But besides talking in pictures to people all over the world, Vacation Island doesn't have a lot to offer. Really, the biggest goal of the game seems to be to feed your pet interesting food. Now we like Udon Noodles as much as anyone (maybe more!), but there really isn't a need to base a game around giving it to the dog. We can pet our kitty and he purrs, but there aren't goals within the game to keep us moving along.

Players do level up and unlock new sections of the island, which sounded cool at first, but it's just a scenery change. Petting the dog in the park, or petting the dog on a pirate ship, it's not going to extend the playing time. Even when having a party, we're just petting everyone's dog.

The minigames help a bit though. There's a Mahjong Solitaire game, and a balloon popping dart game, and they're pretty fun. There's a Wok stir-fry game that's like playing a baby version of Cooking Mama, but every recipe plays out nearly identical. And every game just earns the player food to feed their pet.

The biggest reason to keep playing, and the reason we found ourselves obsessively interacting with every pet we found, is that all those sweet costumes cost money. Nearly everything the player does on the island earns Shells, the currency of GoPets. The Island shop changes stock every day, and as the player levels up, the shop increases the amount of stock it carries. It's an ingenious way to get us to keep playing because if we want to buy that awesome Guy Fawkes mask we saw some pony wearing, we'll have to earn it. And nobody wants to send their pet out into the network if they aren't looking fabulous.

The Verdict

We like the idea of an Animal Crossing/Nintendogs combination, but GoPets: Vacation Island isn't quite the perfect pairing we had hoped. There just isn't a lot of game there. The amount of pets is extremely limited, and there are only a handful of minigames. They did a great job on the customization options, and the ability to send your pet out and communicate globally through pictograms is awesome. If there were more game here, or if taking care of the pets required a little more effort, we'd be playing this for a while. Still, it's a new idea that can, and should, be picked up and improved by a developer. But this vacation is over far too soon.